Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A dead mobster’s son sued the feds yesterday for $10 million and a new identity, claiming he was outed as a “confidential source” in a jury-tampering probe tied to infamous Mafia boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano.
Anthony Bottone’s self-filed Manhattan federal court suit, which is riddled with misspellings, says he was put “in harms way” when his “constitutional right against outside intrusion of his privacy” was violated.
He demands “just compensation’’ for “irrepriable harm to his credibility’’ and “stress related health problems’’ that “have effected” his “marriageable duties.’’

Bottone — whose dad, Alfred “Fat Al” Bottone Sr., was a reputed Luchese crime family associate — cites a 2010 court filing that says he provided information about an alleged payoff to a juror in the notorious Blue Thunder brand heroin-trafficking case in the 1990s.
Bottone, his father and brother, Alfred Bottone Jr., were all defendants in that case. Basciano and Anthony Bottone were acquitted.
Bottone’s suit claims Manhattan federal prosecutor James Pastore Jr. quoted him in court papers as saying his father “told him that a juror had been paid to secure an acquittal during the Blue Thunder trial.”
Pastore, however, dismissed the “hearsay statement” as “bereft of basic details,” and noted that allegations of jury tampering were investigated during the trial and deemed “unfounded.”
The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office declined to comment.